You’re bombarded with numbers everywhere you go in social media:

How many friends do you have?
How many people like your page?
How many circles are you in?
How many lists are you on?

Do these numbers matter?

Yes and no.

As a business, you want to build up a quality following. That means developing strategies that attract people who are interested in what you have to offer. Having a lot of people interested in what you do and say is a good thing.

But if you look at number alone, it really isn’t an indicator of your success in social media because follower numbers are inherently gamable (you can buy them and you can get high numbers of people that will never look at your content or engage with you).

It’s quality over quantity.

Do you have 50 followers? 500? 5000?

How many of those followers are actively engaged in conversation with your business, about your business or developing a relationship with you that could lead to a business relationship?

If you have 50 engaged and interested followers, that is far more valuable than 50,000 that barely know your account exists because they followed to increase their own numbers.

Don’t stop working on the numbers.

Although high numbers don’t necessarily mean a lot, low numbers can make people think you aren’t very established.

Working to steadily increase your number of engaged and quality followers, be it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or the number of people signed up to your newsletter, should continue to be a focus of your social media strategy. One of our best suggestions for doing this is to ask and remind on a regular basis.

Do you worry about the numbers?

And before you go, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and sign up for our newsletter. We’re always working on the numbers too.